Christ Church (Moscow, ID)

We are at war. But we do not wage this war with the weapons of the flesh. We wage this war with the mightier weapons of the Spirit. These are not fake weapons. They are real, and they have been conquering men and women since the advent of sin and evil in the world. What are these weapons? They are the weapons of kindness, mercy, truth, generosity, forgiveness, and above all else, the Word of God and prayer.

THE TEXTBy faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise; for he waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.By faith Sarah herself also received strength to conceive seed, and she bore a child when she was past the age, because she judged Him faithful who had promised. Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born as many as the stars of the sky in multitude—innumerable as the sand which is by the seashore.These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland. And truly if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return. But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them (Heb. 11:8–16).

INTRODUCTIONEveryone knows that the Christian faith revolves around the forgiveness of sins. But because there is a gospel logic involved in it that eludes every form of carnal reasoning, we have to be careful to understand what is actually involved. What is real forgiveness?THE TEXT“Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you” (Eph. 4:31–32).SUMMARY OF THE TEXTThere are two ways of conducting life together. One of them is the enemy of life together, and the other is the true friend of life together. One drives us apart and the other knits us together.The first is the way is the way of keeping score, with the intention of winning. It is the way of bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, slander and malice (v. 31). This all sounds pretty bad, but we have to remember that all these plug-uglies travel under an alias. They call themselves righteousness, and have a deep commitment to being right. This approach makes koinonia community impossible.The alternative is kindness and tenderheartedness. And the way that kindness and tenderheartedness “live out” is by forgiving one another, and doing so in exactly the same way that God has forgiven us for the sake of Jesus Christ (v. 32).WHAT FORGIVENESS IS NOTWe often feel like we are asking God for His forgiveness when what we are really doing is asking Him to accept our excuses. And because we know that we are to forgive as we were forgiven, as per our text, we often seek to forgive others by agreeing beforehand to accept their excuses, when possible. But (unlike ourselves) they had better have a good one.Our problem is that, when living together with other sinners, we frequently run smack into what can only be called inexcusable. And because it is inexcusable, our scheme with the excuses cannot work.Forgiveness deals with sin. And sin, by its very nature, is inexcusable. But what is inexcusable is not (thank the Lord) unforgivable.PARDON ME AND FORGIVE MEIf you accidentally back into someone during fellowship hour, and make them spill their coffee, you naturally say pardon me, or please excuse me. By this you mean to say that you did what you did to them in a way that was entirely unintentional. They respond accordingly—don’t mention it. No problem. The accident was an accident, and it was therefore excusable.But suppose you looked across the fellowship hall, and there saw your enemy, as pleased with himself as a conceited Pharisee could be, and so you lowered your shoulder and ran straight into him, knocking him clean over. Under such circumstances, the only reason you would say “pardon me” would be if you had decided to taunt him after bowling him over. In this case, your behavior is inexcusable.That doesn’t mean that nothing can be done about it. The inexcusable is not the same kind of thing as the unforgivable.A MIXED BAGBut there is another category. What if we don’t have something that is purely wicked or purely accidental? Suppose it is a mixed bag.Yes, you snapped at the kids, but it was at the end of two days of migraine headache. Yes, you said some things to your wife that were rude and thoughtless, but she was the one who started the argument, and would not let it go, not even after you had asked her to. You had asked her three times. Yes, you sent an email to your boss that you regret sending, but it was 2 in the morning, and the beer you had made you careless.There are extenuating circumstances, in other words. But we should all remember two things about this. The first is that we will tend to stretch our legitimate excuse part to cover over our sin part. But the only thing that can actually cover sin is the blood of Jesus Christ. When apologizing, we lead with the excuse. “Bob, sorry about yesterday. I had a long day, and I didn’t really mean what I said.” And Bob often responds in kind (because he wants to play the same game when he needs to). “Oh, well, because you didn’t mean it, forget about it.” In other words, because the “you” who said those things was not the real you, he can let it go.The second problem is that we want our excuses to be way stretchier than our neighbor’s excuses. But as C.S. Lewis pointed out one time, the chances are excellent that our neighbor’s excuses are way better than we tend to believe. And it is also true that our excuses are way lamer than we think they are. When we handicap the competition between us and our fellow Christians, we are not nearly as objective as we think we are. A VARIATION OF THE GOLDEN RULEThe basic Christian response is to forgive as we have been forgiven. In our text, the apostle Paul is simply repeating what the Lord taught us when He taught us to pray. Every time we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we ask Him to forgive us as we forgive others. The way many Christians live, the room actually ought to become much quieter when we get to that part.“Lord, please doubt the sincerity of my repentance the way I doubt his. Lord, dismiss my excuses with a wave of your hand the way I dismiss his excuses. Lord, keep a hidden tally so that if I sin in this area again, You can bring everything up again, and throw it in my face, the way I do with him. Amen.”The Golden Rule teaches us that we should do for others what we wish they would do for us. This is in the same spirit, but there is a higher level of danger in it. Here we are asking God to treat us the way we treat our brother. If I give my brother an orange, he might give me an apple. But if I give my brother a stone when he asked for bread, and then I ask God to treat me in the same way, I may find out the stone is one that will crush me. God can give me a much bigger stone than my brother ever could.BY GRACE ALONEBut how is this consistent with salvation by grace alone? “For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (Matt. 6:14–15). If you refuse to forgive your brother, you are not failing to earn your salvation. If you refuse to forgive your brother, you are revealing to the world that you have no understanding of what salvation by grace through faith actually is. Remember that Christ is all.

The multiplication of local churches, and many of them, is part of God’s plan. As J.I. Packer once put it, every local congregation is “called to fulfill the role of being a microcosm of the church as a whole.”And so as you look around this morning, see the one church of Christ in this room. And when you drive home past other faithful churches in our town, and as you consider all of God’s people in our nation and throughout the world—see the church of Christ, one Body, united in Him.

Have you trusted in Christ? Have you come to God the Father through Jesus Christ?Think about the worst thing you ever did. It's clean. It's gone. It's forgiven. It's washed. It's cleansed. It's all done.So here is the charge: deal with it.

INTRODUCTIONWhen Paul comes to describe the fruit of the Spirit in Gal. 5:22, he uses the singular form of fruit, and then goes on to list love, joy, peace, and so on. So instead of considering this as a list of disparate fruits, like apples, oranges and bananas, perhaps we might consider the different graces listed as aspects or attributes of the one fruit of the Spirit’s presence—like redness, sweetness, and so on. And one of the most distinctive aspects of His presence is the grace of joy.THE TEXT“Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds” (Heb. 12:1–3).SUMMARY OF THE TEXTIn the eleventh chapter of Hebrews, we were given a long list of Old Testament saints who had endured great trials and troubles (Heb. 11:35b-38), or who had overcome great trials and troubles (Heb. 11:32-35a). These all were set before us as examples to encourage us in the race that we have to run. The stadium is filled with saints from the older covenant, whose races are now complete, and it is our turn to come to the starting line (v. 1). We are to lay aside everything that might hinder us in running, whether a weight or a sin, and we are to run with endurance. That means this is therefore not a sprint, but rather a long race (v. 1). Although chapter 11 is crammed with examples, now that we are running, we are to look to the supreme example, Jesus—the author and finisher of our faith (v. 2). Jesus ran His race this way—He endured the cross, holding the shame of it in contempt, and is now seated on the throne of glory. He also has completed His race. This passage tells us to look to Jesus Christ twice—looking unto Jesus (v. 2), and consider Him that endured (v. 3). If we don’t consider how Christ endured such “contradiction of sinners,” we are going to get sucked down into our own pain, and then we will quit from exhaustion.ROBBED OF JOYOur text says that in order to run the race effectively, the race that has joy at the end of it, we must lay aside sin and the weight that so easily entangles. One of the things that robs us of our ability to run with joy toward that joy is sin. This was certainly David’s experience. “For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: My moisture is turned into the drought of summer. Selah. I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord; And thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. Selah” (Psalm 32:4–5).A second major thief of joy is poor doctrine. Some people believe that because Reformed folk believe in total depravity that this means that we must spend our time wallowing around in it. But we affirm total depravity, which is not the same thing as blowing bubbles in it. False teaching, misplaced teaching, is a thief of joy. “What has happened to all your joy? I can testify that, if you could have done so, you would have torn out your eyes and given them to me. Have I now become your enemy by telling you the truth?” (Gal. 4:15-16)NOT A HAPPY HAPPY JOY JOY THINGJoy is deep satisfaction with the will of God for your life, as that will is expressed by Him in the circumstances of your life. But joy is not froth and bubble on the surface of your life. Joy is the bedrock, down beneath the soil in which all your experiences grow. And the bedrock doesn’t move, regardless of what’s happening up above.“But in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, In stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labours, in watchings, in fastings; By pureness, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned, By the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armour of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, By honour and dishonour, by evil report and good report: as deceivers, and yet true; As unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and, behold, we live; as chastened, and not killed; As sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things” (2 Cor. 6:4–10).Peter gives us the same kind of clear juxtaposition.“Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations: That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ: Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory: Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls.” (1 Peter 1:6–9).THE NOISE OF OUR CELEBRATIONOne greater than Solomon is here (Matt. 12:42), and when Solomon was crowned king, Joab was provoked to ask, “Wherefore is this noise of the city being in an uproar?” (1 Kings 1:41). Solomon had been crowned in Gihon, and everybody came up from there “rejoicing” (1 Kings 1:45).Christ was crowned at His ascension and given universal authority, and we are the people who meet weekly to acclaim Him as our king. That is what we are doing here, is it not? And that is why the hallmark of evangelical, Reformed, postmillennial, Kuyperian, covenantal faith is also here. What is that mark? Is it not cheerfulness? Is it not joy?

The reason we do well to celebrate such days as Reformation Day is that we’re commanded to remember to our children such deliverances of our God. We honor our earthly fathers because God our Father used them to bring about a great deliverance.

We should want to fill the world with a forest of good and faithful trees. Fully expecting that we and our institutions will all fall and rot in the process. All our pirate ships will sink, all of them. May they sink faithfully in battle.You can listen to all Grace Agenda 2021 messages here on the app.

Most of you have heard by now that the elders have determined to plant Christ Church Downtown as a new church in the coming months. This is both exciting and daunting. And so I want to give two brief exhortations related to this.

INTRODUCTIONWe have come to the climax of Micah’s great prophetic word. This is the note he ends on, which is a note of consolation. God chastises His people, but He does not forget His people. He disciplines His people, but He does not abandon His people. We know that regardless of what happens, God will obtain glory for Himself, and the greatest glory possible comes when He is manifested as the one who delivers.THE TEXT“Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy: When I fall, I shall arise; When I sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light unto me. I will bear the indignation of the Lord, because I have sinned against him, Until he plead my cause, and execute judgment for me: He will bring me forth to the light, and I shall behold his righteousness. Then she that is mine enemy shall see it, and shame shall cover her Which said unto me, Where is the Lord thy God? Mine eyes shall behold her: Now shall she be trodden down as the mire of the streets . . . Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, And passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? He retaineth not his anger for ever, Because he delighteth in mercy. He will turn again, he will have compassion upon us; He will subdue our iniquities; And thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea. Thou wilt perform the truth to Jacob, and the mercy to Abraham, Which thou hast sworn unto our fathers from the days of old” (Micah 7:8–20).SUMMARY OF THE TEXTThe prophet ended the previous section by saying that he was going to wait on the Lord. He was going to look to the Lord, and only to the Lord, for the deliverance that was coming (v. 7). The prophet then steps into the persona of the Jewish people characterized as a woman. In that voice, speaking against a taunting unbelieving woman, she says that her adversary should not boast at her fall. And why? Because she was going to rise again (v. 8). Israel acknowledges her sin, and the justice of God in disciplining her, while at the same time rejecting the taunts of her adversaries (v. 9). The woman taunting will be humiliated, and will be trodden down like street dirt (v. 10). In vv. 11-13, the prophet refers in retrospect to the scattering of the Church that was illustrated by the Babylonians. But despite this, the people of God, the flock of God’s heritage, will be gathered again, and they will be well-pastured (v. 14). God will do marvels on their behalf, miracles that recall the glory of the Exodus (v. 15). The other nations will stop their mouths, and will be confounded (v. 16). They will eat dirt like a serpent, and will be afraid of Jehovah God (v. 17). Who is a God like our God, who pardons iniquity, and who delights in mercy (v. 18). He will turn back to us, and will subdue our iniquities, and He will drown our sins in the ocean (v. 19). God will do all this because He promised Abraham and Jacob that He would (v. 20).TWO RELATIONS TO SINWhen the people of God repent of their sins, they come to understand two things about that sin. The first is that they call sin by its proper name. They confess or acknowledge their sin (1 Jn. 1:9), and they don’t try shuffle anything off through excuses. At the same time, they reject the taunts of the unbelievers, those who once said, “Where is the Lord your God?” (v. 10).When David was the song of drunkards, exulting in his disgrace with Bathsheba, he was attacked with his sin (2 Sam. 12:14; Ps. 69:12). But he was not attacked for his sin. He was attacked because he was a friend of God, and the sin just proved to be a handy cudgel.FEAR AS PART OF EVANGELISMNotice again what Micah says in v. 17—the nations round about will come to fear Jehovah. We have for too long thought that the only possible way to be winsome is to be nice, grin a lot, and talk about Jesus. But this, all by itself, is an invitation into a cozy club. It is not an invitation into the community of those who worship the God who is a consuming fire (Heb. 12:28), and whose presence makes us want to worship Him in reverence and fear.But when the power of God is present in the church, one of the responses that people naturally have is one of fear.“And by the hands of the apostles were many signs and wonders wrought among the people; (and they were all with one accord in Solomon’s porch. And of the rest durst no man join himself to them: but the people magnified them” (Acts 5:12–13).“And great fear came upon all the church, and upon as many as heard these things” (Acts 5:11).WHO IS LIKE OUR GOD?What are we told at the very end of this prophetic book? We are told that we serve a God who delights in mercy. Earlier in the book (Micah 6:8), we were told what God requires of us—that we do justly, love mercy, and walk with humility. Here we are told that God delights in the very thing He tells us to love.God promised the patriarchal fathers that they would have descendants, spiritual descendants, that were beyond the capacity of any mortal to count. Like the stars in the sky. Like the grains of sand on the seashore. And the apostle John turned and looked, and saw a number of redeemed saints that were beyond the possibility of counting (Rev. 7:9). God is going to save His elect, and He is going to do it on a scale that is beyond our ability to predict. He promised the patriarchs that He would, and He sent the Christ in fulfillment of that promise. Now do you think that now, after the Christ has actually accomplished the work that will do this thing, that God would change His purposes now? What kind of sense would that make?Who is like our God? Who will forgive us for all our iniquities, and come back to fetch those iniquities so that He can go drown them all in the ocean? He will subdue our sins. He will deal with them. In the cross, He has dealt with them forever.